Outdoor gear firm Timberland has agreed to pay $7m to settle a text message spam class-action lawsuit in the US.
Recipients of unsolicited SMS messages punting the rappers' favourite stand to collect up to $150 in compensation from the fund, under the terms of a preliminary agreement. Timberland and e-commerce provider GSI were …

spell check got this wrong

Paying for texts is awful, service providers love it.

I kept getting woken up by my phone beeping at me a few years ago, only to find I was receiving texts in Spanish from a number out of Puerto Rico. The sender would hit me with 50+ a night sometimes. I called my service provider, Sprint at the time, to get assistance. I got no where with Sprint, as this person ran my bill up by hundreds of dollars. I finally convinced the sender that she had the wrong number by texting her back in broken Spanish, and fought with Sprint for 2 months to get all the charges dropped (and did succeed.) Sprint couldn't block just her from sending me messages, and I did use the feature once in a long while so I didn't want to turn it off completely. But I'd maybe use 30 cents worth of messages a month, not anywhere near enough to pay extra for unlimited.

The messages were from a woman who was left by her lover, and I understand why he gave her a fake phone number when he moved here from how crazy her messages were.

wtf

Settlements

Ugh, you don't stand to receive 150usd if you apply for the settlement.

A typical cheque to the wronged will be somewhere between 0.45usd and 15.00usd. The lawyers will get about 40%, the escrow fund managers (generally the same lawyers) will get about 40% (for the taxing work of accepting a giant cheque and writing a bunch of tiny cheques). The remainder will be split between the 8 people who write back and can document in triplicate (notarised, please send us the actual equipment violated, as well) the harm done to them, and a "fee settlement fee" (and probably a, uh, 1000 dollar leaving town tax).

Of course, if you don't accept, you will have to file suit on your own.

Why does anyone "text", anyway?

> having to pay to receive text is stupid

True.

But text messaging to a cell phone when you have access to a telephone is even dafter ... Especially when many (most?) plans allow for unlimited voice calls ... I mean, honestly, WHY does anyone give a rat's ass about text messaging via phone? It makes no sense to me. Almost as daft as including an 'orrible low res camera on a cell phone.

The guilty must be forced to publicly ADMIT it

"Timberland has agreed to reimburse punters for the offending messages but maintains it did nothing wrong."

A solution which does not involve a public admission of guilt is NOT a solution and should not be accepted.

Its high time that spamming was made a very VISIBLE public crime and allowing offenders to say they have done nothing wrong does nothing to solve the problem.

It should preferably also involve a mandatory prison sentence -- even if its only a week -- for each of the top officers, to run consecutively and be accompanied by a press release in which the offender is forced to publicly admit wrongdoing before they are released. If they won't admit it, then they stay there until they do.